In a VISI exclusive, we explore Making Space, the Nando’s Creative Exchange (NCX) exhibition at HUB Gallery – and speak to one of this year’s participating artists, Sello Letswalo, about the programme.
WORDS Gina Dionisio PHOTOS Supplied
Nando’s Creative Exchange (NCX) is the flagship artist development programme within the Nando’s Art Initiative, delivered in partnership with Spier Arts Trust. It recognises emerging fine artists from Southern Africa who demonstrate exceptional talent, providing the support they need to take the next steps in their careers.
Now in its 14th year, the programme continues to provide artists with mentorship, materials and exhibition platforms that help turn creative potential into sustainable careers. The latest exhibition, Making Space — which runs from 6 November 2025 to 20 January 2026 at HUB Gallery — features artworks by Debbie Field, Mduduzi Twala, Sello Letswalo and Fleur De Bondt. Guided by mentor Emma Willemse, they’ve each contributed a cohesive body of work exploring identity, resilience and connection.
We spoke with artist Sello Letswalo to find out more about his Nando’s Creative Exchange journey.
What motivated you to join the Nando’s Creative Exchange, and how has the experience shaped you creatively and professionally?
“What motivated me initially was knowing that NCX represents one of the most important support systems for emerging artists in South Africa. Looking at my career trajectory — the programmes I wanted to participate in each year, the growth I wanted to achieve — NCX was always on that list. It’s not just an exhibition opportunity; it’s a mentorship, a community, and a validation that your voice matters within broader artistic conversations.
“Working on this series, I experimented more boldly with scale: pieces like ‘Kids Game’ (92 × 159 cm) are among the largest I’ve created. I pushed my understanding of how rust and metal can collaborate with painted imagery, creating works where the material itself tells part of the story. The weathered texture isn’t just aesthetic; it carries the histories and scars of the places and people I’m painting.
“Professionally, NCX taught me about sustainability and discipline. I was balancing my studies, creating this body of work, applying for other competitions and managing personal pressures all at once. The pressure was intense, but it was necessary. Without it, I wouldn’t have learnt as much. NCX taught me how to manage multiple responsibilities while maintaining the quality and integrity of my work. It also connected me to a network of artists, curators and supporters who will continue to be valuable throughout my career.”
How did your mentorship with Emma Willemse influence your work and approach to this exhibition?
“This was my second time working with Emma, and that continuity made the mentorship even more valuable. Emma encourages experimentation and pushes you to go further than you might push yourself. She helped me develop the conceptual framework for the Mafelo series — understanding how to articulate what these spaces mean, why metal is essential as a material and how rust functions as more than decoration. Through our conversations, I began to articulate ideas that were intuitive but not yet fully formed. For instance, the concept that rust is not decay but renewal became clearer through our dialogues. Emma helped me see that the oxidation patterns on metal mirror how time and conditions shape the places we inhabit, how spaces carry scars while revealing something essential underneath.
“This mentorship influenced not just the specific works I created but how I think about my long-term development as an artist. It reinforced that art-making is both solitary and communal — you need space to work alone, but you also need trusted voices to help you see what you’re creating more clearly.”
What’s one insight or lesson from the NCX journey that will stay with you?
“The most important lesson is that making space — whether in your practice, your career or your life — requires both patience and boldness. The Mafelo series taught me this materially. You have to be patient with metal, letting it rust naturally, watching oxidation patterns emerge that you couldn’t have planned. But you also have to be bold enough to work on large scales like ‘Kids Game’, or to create intimate ceramic heads that remain intentionally unfinished.
“Another insight that will stay with me is about paying attention to overlooked spaces. The title Mafelo — the Sepedi word for ‘spaces’ or ‘places’ — anchors this work in my linguistic and cultural heritage. Through this series, I learned to ask: What might we recognise about resilience, creativity and belonging when we pay attention to the mafelo others overlook? That question extends beyond this series into how I’ll approach all future work.”
Tell us about the body of work you’re presenting at House Union Block — what stories or ideas do you explore?
“At House Union Block, I’m presenting the Mafelo series, a collection of oil paintings on reclaimed metal and ceramic sculptures exploring the lived environments in which identity, memory and community are shaped. The series includes large-scale works like ‘Kids Game’, which captures children playing with handmade toys on dirt roads — spaces where childhood creativity happens. There’s ‘Metsi Joskei’ (88 × 64 cm), inspired by games we played in the Jukskei River in Alexandra, building boats from whatever we could find and navigating the water together. That painting speaks to something universal about how water draws children in, becoming a space of play and possibility.
“The ceramic works — ‘The Thinker’ and the Head series — complement the paintings by exploring form and presence in three dimensions. These sculptures are left intentionally unfinished, some unfired, rejecting conventional expectations of ceramic art as polished and functional. What I’m really exploring is the in-between spaces: dirt roads, yellow kiosks that serve as social hubs, homesteads, beaches, rivers. These are not picturesque backdrops. They are lived spaces — sites of creativity, connection, labour and joy. A child pushing a wire car down a dirt road is claiming that space. A family with cattle in front of a thatched home is rooted in land and ancestry. These moments resist invisibility.”
Did you experiment with any new materials, techniques or concepts in this collection?
“Yes, significantly. The Mafelo series represents my most ambitious exploration of rust as both medium and collaborator. I’ve always treated steel with hydrogen peroxide, salt and vinegar to create a patina, but in this series, I pushed that relationship further. I learnt to see rust not as decay but as renewal — it eats away at metal, leaving behind patterns of unexpected beauty, much like how time and conditions shape the places we inhabit.
“In this series, I deliberately allowed rust patterns to guide compositional decisions more than before. In pieces like ‘Metsi Joskei’, the rust beneath the painted water and children creates visual tension — the material reality of scarcity and hardship existing alongside the brightness of childhood joy. The oxidation carries scars, yet reveals something essential underneath. This duality — permanence and erosion, strength and vulnerability — mirrors how spaces hold memory while constantly changing.
“The ceramic Head series and ‘The Thinker’ sculptures were experiments in three-dimensional form. By leaving them unfinished — some unfired, some partially glazed — I challenged traditional expectations. This rawness became an aesthetic and conceptual statement about authenticity and the value of the incomplete, mirroring the unfinished, ongoing nature of how we inhabit and shape our spaces.”
How did collaborating with HUB Studios influence your creative process?
“Collaborating with HUB Studios added an important dimension to how I thought about the Mafelo series. HUB itself is an industrial space with its own material history, and knowing my rust-weathered steel paintings would exist in that environment influenced my decisions. The industrial character of the venue dialogues with the industrial reality of the materials I use — metal from scrapyards and construction sites, and repurposed materials that shape township streets and rural homesteads.
“HUB’s team helped me think curatorially about how the series would function as a whole. They encouraged me to consider the relationship between the large-scale pieces like ‘Kids Game’ and ‘Badimo’ and the smaller, more intimate works like the 30 × 30 cm series. Their spatial thinking helped me understand how viewers would move through the exhibition, encountering different scales and subjects that build a cumulative understanding of Mafelo.”
What do you hope visitors take away from your work?
“First and foremost, I hope visitors genuinely recognise these spaces — not as exotic or distant, but as real, layered and significant. When they look at ‘Metsi Joskei’, I want them to see not just children in a river but to remember their own childhood freedoms, their own makeshift adventures. When they encounter ‘Cultural Cows’ or ‘Cows of the Cape’, I hope they see the pride in maintaining tradition, the continuity of ancestral practices, the dignity of rural life.
“I hope visitors begin to see materials differently. When they look at the rust on ‘Kids Game’ or ‘Badimo’, I want them to understand that rust is not decay but renewal. The oxidation patterns, the weathered texture — these aren’t flaws; they carry the histories and scars of places and people. I want viewers to see how metal speaks to resilience, weight and survival, reflecting both the industrial reality of the spaces I paint and the creative strength that grows from those environments.
“If visitors walk away thinking differently about what they consider valuable or overlooked — whether materials, places or people — then the work has succeeded. If they pay more attention to the mafelo around them, noticing the creativity and resilience in spaces they might have passed by without seeing, then I’ve achieved what I hoped.”
How has NCX helped you think differently about building a sustainable art career?
“NCX has been incredibly instructive in showing me what sustainability actually means in an artistic career. Developing the Mafelo series — more than 16 works ranging from large-scale paintings to ceramic sculptures — taught me about working in bodies of work rather than isolated pieces. This is how professional artists operate: creating cohesive series with conceptual depth that can be exhibited together, written about meaningfully and understood as part of an ongoing practice.
“One of the hardest lessons this year was learning to juggle my studies, the creation of the Mafelo series, other exhibitions, competitions and my personal life all at once. The pressure was intense, but it taught me that a sustainable career requires systems and discipline. You can’t wait for the perfect moment with no other responsibilities — you have to learn to work within constraints and manage your time strategically.
“Perhaps most importantly, NCX reinforced that sustainable careers aren’t built in isolation. Having a community of fellow artists, supportive mentors and institutional backing makes the difficult work of being an artist in South Africa more possible. Speaking on behalf of many artists, programmes like NCX are essential infrastructure.”
Has the experience opened any new doors or opportunities for you yet?
“Yes, in several significant ways. First, completing the Mafelo series and having it exhibited at House Union Block adds substantial weight to my CV and portfolio. When I apply for future opportunities — residencies, exhibitions, grants, commissions — having a cohesive, well-documented body of work from NCX demonstrates not just talent but professional capacity. This kind of institutional validation opens doors.
“The relationships I’ve built through NCX are already proving valuable. The other artists in the programme come from different networks than mine, and we’ve been sharing information about opportunities, introducing each other to people in our respective circles and supporting each other’s work. This peer network is invaluable in South Africa’s arts community.
“More broadly, NCX has given me confidence. Being selected after applying multiple times, successfully completing the programme despite intense pressure, creating a body of work I’m genuinely proud of — all of this reinforces my belief that I belong in this field and that my voice matters. That confidence itself opens doors, changing how I approach opportunities and how I present myself.”
Looking ahead, what’s next for you? And if you could sum up your NCX experience in one word or phrase, what would it be?
“After NCX, I want to continue developing the Mafelo theme. There are infinite spaces to explore — more rivers, more homesteads, urban corners, sacred sites, gathering places. I’m interested in working even larger in scale, potentially creating installation pieces that audiences can move through rather than just look at. I want to explore how my steel-based works could exist in public spaces, not just galleries, making them more accessible to broader communities.
“Long-term, I want my work to travel — to be seen by diverse audiences in different contexts. I want the Mafelo series to create dialogues across communities and cultures, helping people everywhere recognise the creativity, resilience and dignity in spaces they might overlook. I want to continue contributing to conversations about waste and value, about cultural memory and contemporary identity, about space and belonging in South Africa and beyond.”
Sum up NCX in one word or phrase.
“If I had to sum up my NCX experience in one phrase, it would be: ‘Making space to grow.’”
Spotlighting South African Talent
Making Space runs from 6 November 2025 – 20 January 2026 at HUB Gallery, Union House, in Cape Town. | nandoscreativity.co.za
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